


like rivers, like lives

by Rena



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Breakup AU, Sharing a Bed, Weddings, shrinkyclinks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 07:44:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9983366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rena/pseuds/Rena
Summary: It's been four months. Four desperate, lonely, long months, since Steve broke up with him, and yet Bucky hasn't gotten around to telling his family. So what's a guy to do when his family assumes Steve will be his date to his sister's wedding?Take his ex-boyfriend anyway and lie his ass off, that's what. Because there's no way this could possibly end in disaster. After all, it's not like he is still in love with Steve or anything (haha, yeah, right).





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wearing_tearing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearing_tearing/gifts).



> Hello again! I've been meaning to finish this story ages ago, but, you know, real life happened. I'm hoping that posting the first of four chapters will get me to move my ass a little more quickly. The second chapter is about halfway done already so....keep kicking my ass, please.
> 
> This story will be told in four parts, and while it starts off very angsty, be assured, without me giving too much away, that it will feature a happy ending as promised in the tags.

 

“So does Steve want the chicken or the salmon? You still haven’t gotten back to me on that.”

“Hm?” Bucky asks absentmindedly, rummaging through his fridge. He loves his sister dearly, and he is really happy for her, but after an hour of her explaining every detail of her upcoming wedding to him, he can’t help but let his thoughts drift to more pressing matters, like the uncomfortable needy sounds his stomach is beginning to make. He could’ve sworn he still had that avocado he bought on a whim a couple of weeks ago. All the fancy people are eating that now, and he’d wanted to know what all the fuss was about. Maybe he’d thrown it out? He honestly can’t remember.

“Steve,” Becca repeats impatiently, “does he want the chicken or the salmon? I need to let the caterer know about the final choices in the next few days.”

It‘s like someone filled an entire bathtub with ice water and decided to dump it over his head.

“Bucky? You still there?”

Oh God.

Oh _God_.

“The chicken,” Bucky croaks out. “Definitely the chicken. You know how he is about fish.”

“I figured, with all the seafood he’s allergic to, but I wanted to make sure. You only marked one meal on your card, and I didn’t want to assume. Not everyone knows your boyfriend as well as you do, you know?”

“Sorry,” he says mechanically. “I thought I noted that down.”

He didn’t. He remembers filling out the card clearly. The card that Bucky had only marked one meal on, because he’ll be showing up alone.

He’d sort of hoped Becca would draw the logical conclusion from that, and he’d never have to say the horrible thing out loud. But of course she hadn’t. Who would, after five years of bliss? Bucky’d never mentioned any problems and now…

Well.

Now.

“Tell him I can’t wait to see him again,” Becca carries on, bubbly and oblivious. “It’s been too long.”

“Well, you were the one who had to move to fucking Shelbyville, Indiana,” Bucky shoots back.

“Small town life is not your enemy, Bucky, you fucking elitist Brooklynite! And you’re the one who went to Russia for half a year.”

 _Don’t fucking remind me,_ Bucky bites back, and chooses to only comment on the first part of her sentence. “Debatable,” he says. “And I’m not an elitist.”

“Are too.”

“Am not!”

“God, I miss you,” Becca says suddenly, choked up.

“Yeah, I miss seeing your dumb face, too.” He doesn’t mention that there is a tiny part of him that’s grateful his sister and parents have relocated, that they didn’t get a front row seat to his life falling apart.

When he hangs up, he wonders how he is supposed to tell his family what he’d managed to keep a secret for four months.

 

* * *

 

“It’s kind of funny, you know,” Bucky slurs into the receiver. He doesn’t remember picking up the phone, but here he is, sitting in a deep dive bar, slumped over the sticky counter, too drunk to really think or do more taxing things like standing, and he’s talking to no one.

The bartender has been sending him dirty looks for like half an hour. Maybe only ten minutes, or whenever it was that Bucky picked up the phone and went from being a silent, miserable drunk to a loud miserable drunk. Time’s gone kind of blurry for him, stretchy, like bubble gum.

He’s very drunk, is the point.

“Actually, it’s hilarious from the right perspective. It must be funny from your side of things. I bet you’re laughing yourself to death right now. For me it’s just… fuck.” He rubs a hand over his face. “I hate this.”

The silence down the line rings in his ears. Then, suddenly there’s a loud intake of breath from the other side.

“Bucky?” a very familiar, very deep voice asks.

Bucky jolts upright, and nearly falls off the stool he’s been slouching on for the better part of three hours. “Natasha?” he asks stupidly, like he didn’t realise there’s no way this voice belongs to his best friend.

“Stay where you are, okay?” Steve says, voice emotionless. “Don’t move a finger.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Bucky replies petulantly, and wiggles his fingers extra hard out of spite, not that Steve can see it.

Judging by his deep sigh, he’s kind of guessing it, though. “Stop. Just let me make sure you get home okay.”

“I can -”

“Don’t start. You’re completely sauced, and I don’t need - no one needs a repeat of the great squirrel disaster of 2013. So stay where you are, you hear me?”

It’s still way too easy to follow Steve’s wishes, when he pretends like it actually matters to him. “I hear you,” Bucky agrees and hangs up, staring at his half-filled tumbler of Whiskey. Maybe he’ll have time for another one before Steve hunts down Nat and sends her for him. He could certainly _use_ another one. On the downside, if he drinks more he’ll slide into utterly trashed territory and probably end up puking all over her expensive shoes, and he might not care now, but he certainly will once he’s sober and she rams one of her stiletto heels up his ass in revenge.

But really, the situation warrants another drink.

Or five.

He keeps staring at his drink blankly until -

“Buck?”

The tiny part of him that’s not completely drunk and still has some dignity left to lose shrivels up and dies a quiet death. The other 98% are too drunk to care. “Steve!” he half yells, half slurs. “Stevie? Whatcha doing here?”

“Getting your dumb ass home, remember?”

Bucky…doesn’t really remember that part. He remembers, vaguely, trying to call Nat in hopes of commiseration. He remembers, even less clearly, hitting the wrong button on speed dial and getting Steve instead. He tries not to think about that he hasn’t deleted Steve’s number, that he’s still number one on his speed dial. About how pathetic it is. Steve’d laugh at him for sure if he knew. Except he wouldn’t, he’s too nice for that. But he’d give him a look, full of pity and maybe even disgust, and it’d be warranted. Bucky is pretty disgusted with himself. He tries not to think about that, either. The alcohol helps a little right now, but it’s still not one hundred percent effective. Maybe he should have some more.

“Don’t wanna,” he say stubbornly.

“Well, you gotta,” Steve replies firmly. “I got an Uber waiting outside to get you home. I promised I’d make sure you get home okay. Now come on, Nat’ll kill me if something happens to you.”

“Nah,” Bucky mumbles, but obediently slides off the stool, slowly and carefully, balancing himself against the counter. “She wouldn’t hurt ya. She likes you better anyway.”

Everyone likes Steve better. He doesn’t blame them.

A complicated emotion flickers over Steve’s face. There used to be a time when Bucky would’ve been able to identify it, to know exactly what he’s thinking even in the state he’s in, but those times are long gone, and the expression on Steve’s face disappears before Bucky can linger on it and try to decipher it.

“C’mon, Buck, you know that’s not true,” Steve says.

“What, like I got her in the divorce?” Bucky laughs bitterly. “I didn’t get nothing in the divorce, just a half-empty apartment I can’t stand to be in and...shit!” He curses as he stumbles.

Steve throws an arm around his waist and drapes one of Bucky’s arms around his shoulder to steady him. “We didn’t get divorced,” he reminds Bucky.

“I know. Gotta be married for that.” He only barely keeps himself from adding that it sure feels like they did, though. In this split moment, he’s very grateful his self-control hasn’t been completely shot to shit.

He can blame the longing in his voice on the alcohol.

Steve must hear it too, because he turns very quiet, and there’s no fight in his voice, just gentleness that stings even worse when he says, “C’mon, let’s get you home.”

“Okay,” Bucky breathes, and tries very hard not to lean on Steve too heavily, to not bury his face in Steve’s shoulder and cry until he passes out from exhaustion. He’d thought he’d gotten over the phase in which he always felt like bursting into tears a while ago, but apparently not. “Yeah, okay.”

 

* * *

 

Bucky wakes up and immediately wishes he hadn’t. His head is pounding something awful and his mouth tastes like roadkill. With a groan, he turns around to avoid the sunlight bleeding through the blinds. He opens his eyes blearily, and after a lot of blinking, a glass of water sitting on the nightstand comes into focus. Beside it, a single aspiring is carefully laid out.

Then last night comes rushing back to him. Becca calling about the wedding, reminding him of Steve. Him deciding to get drunk, and accidentally calling Steve. Steve coming to pick him up and tucking him into bed and Steve -

Steve.

He swallows the pill and washes it down with the water, ignoring the way his stomach roils, and decides he could probably do with some more liquids if he intends to sober up at any point before midday. The thought of food is unbearable at the moment, and even thinking of consuming more water makes him feel nauseous, but he knows he needs it.

He stumbles into the kitchen groggily, rubbing his eyes and freezes.

“Hey,” Steve says.

“What are you doing here?” Bucky asks, panicked.

Steve’s expression shutters. “You called me, remember?”

“Yeah, you brought me home,” Bucky says. “Thanks,” he adds belatedly. “I - we didn’t - did we?” He doesn’t have any memory of sleeping with Steve. He doubts he’d have forgotten. Sex with Steve has always been a religious experience that no amount of alcohol could wipe from his brain.

“ _No_ ,” Steve says, voice icy. “What do you take me for?”

Ah, yes. Not to mention that Steve would probably rather cut his own dick off than get it anywhere near Bucky’s again.

None of that explains while Steve is still _here_.

Apparently Steve can still understand his confused eyebrow twitches enough to know what Bucky’s getting at.

That makes one of them.

“I didn’t want to leave you alone in the state you were in. I don’t need to feel responsible for you choking on your own vomit.”

It’s like another punch in the solar plexus.

“Right,” Bucky says bitterly. “Well, that’s not gonna happen. You can go now.”

Steve doesn’t take the very obvious hint. “I made coffee. And toast for later, when your stomach is ready for something more solid.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“You called me,” Steve snaps. “I’m not the one who -”

“I didn’t ask you to stay,” Bucky snarls. The pounding in his head gets worse with every second. Or maybe that’s just his heart twisting painfully in his chest. He curls his fingers into fists, his nails biting into the soft palms of his hands to keep himself from reaching out to Steve, despite everything. “I didn’t ask you for any of this!”

“Oh, that’s rich. You -”

“Are you the only person in the world incapable of ignoring a drunk call?” Bucky interrupts him angrily. “You knew I was trying to reach Natasha. You could’ve just hung up. No one forced you to -” He breaks off, panting hard. “You don’t get to hold this over my head. You don’t get to make decisions without consulting me and then get angry when I don’t like them.”

Steve swallows. “You talked about Becca,” he says quietly. “The wedding. And I couldn’t -”

Right. Figures that it’s the mention of Bucky’s family that’d make Steve pause, make him stay, not Bucky himself. His family have always loved Steve, and he loved them right back. Steve has been considered part of the family for as long as Bucky can remember. Judging by the torn look on Steve’s face, he laments the loss of their presence in his life more than the lack of Bucky in it. And it’s - it’s not that Bucky doesn’t understand it, really. He just can’t deal with it right now. “Get out,” he says. He’s so tired. All he wants to do is curl up in a ball under his blankets and quietly fall apart where no one’s watching.

Unlike the last time Bucky said those words to him, Steve doesn’t move. “You haven’t told them.” It’s not a question, it’s an accusation.

“I’m not doing this with you.”

“What, you gonna stick your head in the sand again? I know you’re an expert at that, but you can’t do it with this. I won’t let you -”

“Let me?” Bucky repeats, slightly hysterically. “ _Let me_?”

“This concerns me, too, and I won’t -”

“Oh, fuck you,” Bucky spits. “This concerns you? Tell me, Steve, how will it fucking affect you? No, really, I’m dying to hear it. Are you the one going to have to deal with the fallout and the disappointed faces? Oh no, that’s me, because it’s _my_ family, not yours. You won’t have to deal with any of it. You got off scot free. Congratulations!”

Steve clenches his jaw. “You’re right. They’re your family. But they were my family too, for a long time. So excuse me for still caring.”

“You waived your right to care about them or influence any of my decisions when you dumped me,” Bucky responds icily. “You don’t get a say in how I lead my life anymore.”

“I didn’t dump you!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, are we pretending that I was the one who initiated the break-up? Are you gonna put the blame for that on me as well?”

“I never said it was all your fault!” Steve says heatedly. “Don’t put words in my mouth!”

“Well, it sure felt like that’s what you were saying.”

“I don’t wanna fight with you, Buck.”

“You’re free to go,” Bucky points out. “I know you remember where the door is.”

Steve pauses, still. “You’re really going to tell them at the wedding?” he asks disapprovingly.

“Shit, no!” Bucky says. “What the fuck do you take me for? I don’t wanna ruin Becca’s big day. That’s the entire point of not telling them. It’s supposed to be all about her - she deserves that, to be in the spotlight. I don’t need my family being distracted. You know if they found out they’d all focus on me, and try to hug me all the time and make pitying faces and maybe even try to set me up with someone else and I can’t - I don’t need that. Becca doesn’t need that.”

Steve frowns. “So what are you going to say when they ask you where I am?”

Honestly, Bucky hasn’t really thought that far ahead yet. He rakes his fingers through his hair. “I’ll tell them you’re sick,” he improvises. It’s the first excuse that comes to mind. It’s not even a bad one; Steve gets sick so often his family should buy it easily.

Steve scoffs. “You’d stay to play Florence Nightingale if I was really sick,” he says. “And if it wasn’t that bad, they know I’d be dragging myself there regardless of how shitty I felt.”

“I’ll tell them you’re in the hospital with pneumonia,” Bucky counters.

Steve gives him an incredulous look. “Because obviously they’d believe you’d leave my side.”

“My sister’s only getting married once - hopefully,” Bucky adds. “So yeah, if it wasn’t an emergency and I knew you were in good hands, of course I’d go. It wouldn’t even be the first time I did something or went somewhere without you. Surprisingly, I am capable of doing stuff without being attached to you by the hip.”

It’s mean and unfair, but the sick irony of Bucky joking about it doesn’t seem to wound Steve nearly as much as it does Bucky. There’s a brief flash of hurt in his eyes, and then it’s gone, buried behind a facade of calm reason. “They’re going to want to Skype me,” Steve says. “They’ll notice me not being in the hospital or, or - home.”

“I’ll make something up,” Bucky insists stubbornly.

“You go in there with that face, they’ll know immediately. They’ll know something’s wrong.”

 _Wrong._ Bucky fights the urge to laugh hysterically. That word choice deserves an award for understatement of the year.

“I could -” Steve cuts himself off, swallows. Bucky tries not to trace the movement of his Adam’s apple with his eyes, but it’s a losing battle. He’s never not been aware of Steve’s body, of Steve’s, well, everything.

It’s the cruelest thing in the world that he could be so attuned to Steve and then miss something so monumental.

“I could go with you,” Steve says haltingly. “To the wedding, I mean.”

All of Bucky’s thoughts grind to a halt. “What?”

“I said I could go to the wedding with you.”

“Oh, I heard you the first time. I was just checking whether it was you or me who’s completely lost his mind, but hey, good news, I haven’t completely lost my marbles. Unlike you, apparently.”

“Fuck you,” Steve says. “You could’ve just said no.”

“I could’ve,” Bucky confirms, “but I don’t think it would’ve sufficiently expressed how much I wanted to say _what the fuck._ What about this -” he gestures wildly between the two “- makes you think that could possibly be a good idea?”

Steve shrugs. “It’d be the easiest thing, right? Fulfil their expectations and all that? As long as we keep a low profile, we should be fine.”

Bucky barks out a bitter laugh. “You honestly think they wouldn’t notice something’s wrong? Look at us, Steve. We can’t make it five minutes into a conversation without ripping each other to pieces.”

“We’ve pretended before,” Steve says quietly, his voice so soft it’s almost inaudible. “For a very long time. We got so good at acting like everything was fine we almost managed to convince ourselves.”

Bucky draws in a sharp breath, and fights against the wave of grief and regret washing over him. “No,” he says. “We didn’t. You did.”

It’s meaner than he has any right to be, probably, but Steve accepts the jab with a nod. “I gotta admit, the offer is not entirely altruistic. In fact, it’s more than a little selfish. Very uncharacteristic of me, I know.” Steve smiles sardonically. “I guess - I guess I’d just like to see them again one more time before - well, before I’m sure I won’t be invited back ever again. A way to say goodbye, you know?” he adds, biting his lip, when Bucky doesn’t reply. “I know you don’t owe me this, Buck. You don’t owe me anything. I just thought maybe we could help each other out, you know, if you don’t completely hate me. Just - think about it.”  He shrugs awkwardly. “I’ll - get out of your hair now.”

“I don’t hate you,” Bucky says.

Steve smiles weakly and turns to leave, and it’s the worst day of Bucky’s life all over again.

And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? Bucky doesn’t hate Steve. There’s a tiny part of him that wishes he could, that tells him it would be easier if he did. But the truth is, he doesn’t hate him, and he doesn’t think he ever could. Steve could stick a metaphorical knife in Bucky’s heart and twist it - and he has, stabbed him out of the blue and twisted the knife and then walked away to leave Bucky bleeding out on the floor, and it hasn’t made Bucky love him any less - and he could stick a literal knife in it as well and Bucky still couldn’t get himself to hate him.

The thing is, Bucky’s known for a long time that Steve is _it_ for him. He’s been in love with a few people in his life, but nothing has ever compared to what he feels for Steve, and he knows in his bones that he’s never going to find it again. In the end, he’d rather torture himself spending a couple of  painful days by Steve’s side than have long years of being vaguely happy with someone else.

He’s desperate enough that he’d content himself with table scraps, and if Steve is a selfish man, then Bucky is that times ten, and masochistic to boot.

“Becca already ordered the chicken,” Bucky says, causing Steve to freeze with his hand on the door handle. “Would be a waste of good food.”

Steve turns around, eyes wide, and if Bucky didn’t know any better he’d say Steve is trembling. “Yeah?” he asks.

Bucky shrugs, going for casual and missing by at least a mile. “You always go on and on about consumerism and the wastefulness of our society. Guess you rubbed off on me. So yeah, why not. They already paid for the food and the flights and the room and all that. And you’re right, they would know something’s up. You’d, like, call from the hospital and insist on coming, and we’d all have to try and stop you, and they’d probably even ask whether I want to stay with you, so I suppose just showing up together might actually be easier. And I guess I’m not that much of an asshole.”  He pauses. “Not that you couldn’t - keep in touch with them, after. They’d want you to.”

Steve’s laugh sounds more like a helpless choking noise. “C’mon, Buck. They’d never choose me over you. And they shouldn’t.”

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees despite himself. “Sure.”

 

* * *

 

“So,” Natasha drawls, slowly, her aloof mask almost in place tight enough to fool Bucky into ignoring the worried crease in her brows, “I got an interesting text from your sister the other day.”

“Yeah?” he asks, playing dumb. “What about? Did she complain about choosing different fonts for the menu cards again?”

“She mentioned Steve’s menu choice,” Natasha says, “in a way that suggests she still assumes he’s coming.” She studies him for a moment. “You still haven’t told them.”

“Natasha,” he warns her. “Don’t.”

“I’ll do it if you can’t.”

The kindness of her voice nearly breaks him. “He’s coming, actually.”

“What?”

“I’m going with Steve, still.” He shrugs. “It’s easier that he goes as my date than for Becca to change the seating plan again. She would’ve killed me. Do you have any idea how long it took her to figure out where she could seat people so they wouldn’t feel shunned but also didn’t get the chance to start a fight?”

“Oh Bucky,” Natasha says.

Bucky can’t stand the pitying way she looks at him. “Don’t,” he repeats. “I’ll be fine.”

“Like you are now?”

“Sure,” he agrees, “just like I am fine now.”


End file.
